Reading Joe Baegent’s brilliant essay – AMERICA: Y UR PEEPS B SO DUM? Ignorance and courage in the age of Lady Gaga – has added considerable weight to some thoughts I’ve had of late regarding so-called political activism. This issue has, of course, been brought to the fore by the Wikileaks/Julian Assange saga which is, as far as I can see, a truly devious set-up – a tar-baby – that puts a person in the position of either accepting lies delivered on the platform of truth, or rejecting the principle of truth along with the lies.

The social, cultural and resultant political problems we face have become such a Gordian knot of pathological influences that any political action along legal pathways appears to be doomed to fail. Human beings are so divided, so immersed in their illusions, that there is no possibility of any unified political action – and the ONLY action that would work would be, of necessity, unified – the majority of humanity acting as One against the tiny minority of Pathocrats. Baegent notes, quite accurately,

What America really needs is a wall-to-wall people’s insurrection, preferably based on force and fear of force, the only thing oligarchs understand. And even then the odds are not good. The oligarchs have all the legal power, police, jails and prisons, surveillance and firepower. Not to mention a docile populace.

In short, the situation is pretty much as described in the movie “V for Vendetta” in this revealing exchange:

Dominic: What do you think will happen?
Finch: What usually happens when people without guns stand up to people *with* guns.

Baegent then mentions another approach:

Shy of open insurrection, a nationwide refusal to pay income taxes would certainly shake things up.

Interestingly, this approach to revolution was described in a SOTT satire piece back in April which got probably more hits than any other thing we’ve ever published! Perhaps that’s a testament to the fact that the reading public recognizes this idea as valid and viable. The only problem, again, is that it would have to be a unified action – the majority of human beings on the planet would have to stand shoulder to shoulder. But that’s not going to happen in the U.S. and the reason is also elucidated by Baegent:

But broader America is happy in the sense they know happiness as an undisturbed regimen of toil, stress and commodity consumption. Despite the way it looks in the news, most Americans remain untouched by foreclosure, bankruptcy and unemployment. So risking loss of their work-buy-sleep cycle in an insurrection looks to be sheer lunacy to them. Like cows, they are kept comfortable in the pure animal sense to be milked for profit. Animal comfort kills all thoughts of revolution. Hell, half of mankind would be thrilled with the average American’s present material situation.

And so it is. Just because a rather limited segment of the population – some cyberspace netizens – are aware of the true mess we are in, doesn’t mean that the vast majority of human beings are either aware or care. And they certainly aren’t going to back Assange’s “revolution.” That is evident in the fact that right now, the polls are saying that the majority of Americans are willing to see Assange hang and give up free speech altogether. In short, they weren’t ready for this action. There’s a lot to be said for the idea that the whole Wikileaks saga – including the choice of a morally unattractive spokesperson who is guaranteed to turn OFF the majority of people – is planned and deliberate at some level for the purposes of making people willing to accept a one-world fascist government just to bring the endless fighting and international dis-ease to an end. We do know that this is, ultimately, the goal of Zionism – with them at the helm, of course.

I was interested to note Baegent’s agreement with me – and SOTT – that despite our doubts about Wikileaks and even Assange himself, indeed, Julian Assange is exhibiting extraordinary courage; unless, of course, it is the false courage of the person who thinks they are really in no danger. After all, Scooter Libby took the fall for Deadeye Dick and things turned out rather well for him. There’s a lot to be said for knowing that you will eventually get out of jail free and your family will never do without even if you take the ultimate hit for your team.

That, of course, does not alter the fact that we should keep an open mind and allow for the possibility that Assange is genuinely trying to do something positive and that a lot of what is said about him is just defamation. I think we don’t have enough hard data to flame Assange though many details make the situation look very suspect. As Michel Chossudovsky writes:

This collaboration between Wikileaks and selected mainstream media is not fortuitous; it was part of an agreement between several major US and European newspapers and Wikileaks’ editor Julian Assange.

The important question is who controls and oversees the selection, distribution and editing of released documents to the broader public?

What US foreign policy objectives are being served through this redacting process?

Is Wikileaks part of an awakening of public opinion, of a battle against the lies and fabrications which appear daily in the print media and on network TV?

If so, how can this battle against media disinformation be waged with the participation and collaboration of the corporate architects of media disinformation?

Wikileaks has enlisted the architects of media disinformation to fight media disinformation: An incongruous and self-defeating procedure.

America’s corporate media and more specifically The New York Times are an integral part of the economic establishment, with links to Wall Street, the Washington think tanks and the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

All the Wiki-facts are selectively redacted, they are then “analyzed” and interpreted by a media which serves the economic elites.

While the numerous pieces of information contained in the Wikileaks data bank are accessible, the broader public will not normally take the trouble to consult and scan through the Wikileaks data bank. The public will read the redacted selections and interpretations presented in major news outlets.

A partial and biased picture is presented. The redacted version is accepted by public opinion because it is based on what is heralded as a “reliable source”, when in fact what is presented in the pages of major newspapers and on network TV is a carefully crafted and convoluted distortion of the truth.

Limited forms of critical debate and “transparency” are tolerated while also enforcing broad public acceptance of the basic premises of US foreign policy, including its “Global War on Terrorism”. With regard to a large segment of the US antiwar movement, this strategy seems to have succeeded: “We are against war but we support the ‘war on terrorism'”.

What this means is that truth in media can only be reached by dismantling the propaganda apparatus, i.e. breaking the legitimacy of the corporate media which sustains the broad interests of the economic elites as well America’s global military design.

In turn, we must ensure that the campaign against Wikileaks in the U.S., using the 1917 Espionage Act, will not be utilized as a means to wage a campaign to control the internet. In this regard, we should also stand firm in preventing the prosecution of Julian Assange in the US.

From the other side, I’ve heard what a great guy Julian is, how he has a “master plan” and is “using the mainstream media” to bring attention to the rotten core of global politics. I will concede that Assange MAY have a strategy that he is playing and CANNOT reveal it or it will fail. And part of that strategy may be playing a certain role. But so far, if he has a master plan, it is not working for the good of humanity. Yes, of course, he’s gotten a lot of flak for his sexcapades but there is probably more to that than meets the eye. But how will the larger public even know about that when all they see is a bunch of wild-eyed hactivists trying to bring down the government that has sworn to protect them from evil Osama bin Underthebed? An Osama, I should mention, who is undoubtedly dead, but Wikileaks’ documents suggest he is a true, living villain along with the CIA-created Al Qaeda.

So, if Assange is really a good guy and has a strategy – maybe to become a martyr? – I do think that whatever this strategy was/is, it’s not a very good one because precipitating a war of any kind or becoming a martyr under these circumstances, only plays into the hands of the PTB – and here I mean the hidden PTB, not the “on stage governments” that are merely puppets of this hidden power. A much better strategy would be for everyone to devote themselves to education about psychopathology, psychopaths in power, and enabling people to be in a condition to SEE the pathology. Which brings me to another point made by Baegent:

So if we are talking change through revolt, we’re necessarily talking about deconditioning because the thing we fear already has a life deep in our own consciousness. Deconditioning from cultural ignorance is at the heart of any insurrectionary politics.

As I mentioned at the beginning, I have been having certain thoughts relating to political activism lately. Those thoughts have to do with the idea that it is clear that taking political action along any of the normal pathways is totally futile. You can’t wake up people who do not believe they are asleep. You can’t wake up people who are not uncomfortable. As I mentioned above, the masses of people needed to get in line and support Assange’s revolution simply aren’t there. There is no vast crowd of ordinary people marching toward parliament wearing Guy Fawkes masks ready to support V’s revolution. If Assange really thought he was an incarnation of V and was going to figuratively blow up parliament, he made a huge miscalculation. If what he is doing is part of a strategy, it was poorly thought out in terms of real human mass psychology. The minimal positive exposure he can get in cyberspace is just not enough to counter the lack of support out there in the real world. Plus, as Baegent notes, people are not yet suffering enough; and most of all, they don’t have the requisite knowledge about psychopaths that is needed before a successful revolution of any kind can be launched.

What to do? Well, I’ve been beating this drum for awhile now, but it is becoming even more urgent that we actually DO something along this line in a significant way. As Baegent notes, the key is in deconditioning;

Deconditioning also involves risk and suffering. But it is transformative, freeing the self from helplessness and fear. It unleashes the fifth freedom, the right to an autonomous consciousness. That makes deconditioning about as individual and personal an act as is possible. Maybe the only genuine individual act.

We have to decondition people, create the psycho-physiological conditions that prepare them for the shock of awakening because, as noted, awakening involves risk and suffering. Facing the lies and illusions we have believed, realizing they are lies and illusions, is painful. Working our way through our cultural programming is difficult at best, agonizing at worst.

This is one of the reasons we created the Éiriú Eolas program. Even though it is promoted as a stress control, healing and rejuvenation program, there is a lot more to it than that. This program fills the criteria of the “way in” toward spiritual and intellectual liberation described by Baegent above.

So, that is step one: we need to be doing this program ourselves and we need to be sharing it with others. If they only want to do it for the health and psychological benefits, that’s fine. It will still work on deeper levels to prepare them for awakening when that critical mass occurs in their lives that makes awakening the only way out.

Step two is that, at the same time, we need to be patient and keep our eye sharply on our reality so as to know when, where and how to act when the moment ripens. This is crucial. Acting precipitately, before the time is right, before people are prepared, is a recipe for disaster as we see in the Wikileaks debacle.

We are opposed on all sides against a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy, as JFK noted. It is the ultimate “Petty Tyrant” in the terms of Castaneda’s Don Juan. We all need to become Seers and Warriors in order to defeat a Petty Tyrant – the pathological system that has taken over our world – and the first order of business is to decondition ourselves, as Baegent noted above. As I said, that is what the Éiriú Eolas program is designed to do and it will work for anyone who practices it regularly. It will enable you to develop the attributes of warriorship: control, discipline, forbearance, timing, and will. The program is designed to open the way to the path of knowledge and to assist in the removal of barriers. As Castaneda wrote:

On the path of knowledge there are four steps. The first step is the decision to become apprentices. After the apprentices change their views about themselves and the world they take the second step and become warriors, which is to say, beings capable of the utmost discipline and control over themselves. The third step, after acquiring forbearance and timing, is to become men of knowledge. When men of knowledge learn to see they have taken the fourth step and have become seers.

Control and discipline refer to an inner state. A warrior is self-oriented, not in a selfish way but in the sense of a total examination of the self. Forbearance and timing are not quite an inner state. They are in the domain of the man of knowledge. The idea of using a petty tyrant is not only for perfecting the warrior’s spirit, but also for enjoyment and happiness. Even the worst tyrants can bring delight, provided, of course, that one is a warrior. […]

What usually exhausts us is the wear and tear on our self-importance. Any man who has an iota of pride is ripped apart by being made to feel worthless. To tune the spirit when someone is trampling on you is called control. Instead of feeling sorry for himself a warrior immediately goes to work mapping the petty tyrant’s strong points, his weaknesses, his quirks of behavior. To gather all this information while they are beating you up is called discipline. A perfect petty tyrant has no redeeming feature.

Forbearance is to wait patiently – no rush, no anxiety – a simple, joyful holding back of what is due. A warrior knows that he is waiting and what he is waiting for. Right there is the great joy of warriorship. Timing is the quality that governs the release of all that is held back. Control, discipline, and forbearance are like a dam behind which everything is pooled. Timing is the gate in the dam.

Forbearance means holding back with the spirit something that the warrior knows is rightfully due. It doesn’t mean that a warrior goes around plotting to do anybody mischief, or planning to settle past scores. Forbearance is something independent. As long as the warrior has control, discipline, and timing, forbearance assures giving whatever is due to whoever deserves it. (Castaneda: The Fire From Within)

The bottom line is this: I don’t see a way out for any of us via the old ways. Historically speaking, revolutions have always been a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” In this day and time, the means of total control of humanity exists and is in the hands of the Power Elite and they keep us weak and helpless by “eating our awareness” and keeping us at each others throats. The only way we are going to get out of this mess is by uniting. Right now, humanity faces the biggest challenge our current civilization has ever known: how to deal with pathology in power and survive and preserve the planet for our children and their children.

It really is a dangerous time to be alive. We have collectively allowed pathological individuals to rise to power, and the solutions that have thus far been offered or tried do not work. Neither prayers and positive thinking nor political action and rebellion seem to have ever been significantly effective over the long term.

As I have written before, prior to the Clovis-era cataclysm 13,000 YBP, there was a worldwide paleolithic religion that lasted over 25,000 years. What is more, it was after this event that significant pathology seems to have emerged on the planet, gradually, in place after place. It can be tracked via archaeology, paleontology, and genetics.

It seems that the ancient Paleolithic religion was a network of people all heading in the same direction. But in order for a network to go anywhere and not just fall into entropy, there must be a direction, and in that sense, there must be a vanguard. The ancients had shamans, those who walked between two worlds.

And so, it seems to be reflective of true evolutionary social activities that there are some who are trailblazers and others who support and “watch the back” of the vanguard. Once the way is forged, and the destination is reached, the others not only benefit from the struggles of the trailblazer, they also set about organizing the details of the new environment and stabilizing it. So, everyone plays a role and if the network is tight, they all arrive pretty much together.

Those who are able to accomplish this task of rebuilding social connections based on the new evolutionary standard of accounting for pathology in the equation will evolve. Those who do not evolve will perish.

Again, this must be a majority effort: sincere and decent people have to unite under one aegis where Truth is the goal – Truth in all its forms, whether good or evil. We can no longer continue to see other normal people, even if they are lost in pathological lies, as the enemy, but must clearly identify the pathology, the corruption, and contain or exclude it. Humanity must first awaken, and then unite so that there can be effective and efficient doing of what needs to be done to ameliorate the situation if possible, and pass through this Horror that psychopaths have created on our planet.

The big question is: how to do that effectively and efficiently? In other words, something that really works. Something that really gets everyone on the same page, going in the same direction toward Truth… and the answer that I see is to begin to prepare the self via the Éiriú Eolas program, and to learn to be a Warrior and a Seer as Castaneda described.

That’s the first order of business: getting clear.

The second is the doing, but that can only come as the result of agreement between individuals who are clear and capable of perceiving primary reality as objectively as possible. Each situation will be different. Whatever gets done must be done according to the attributes of warriorship: control, discipline, forbearance, timing, and will and from the position of a Man of Knowledge.

Our situation is so dire that if we do not take extraordinary measures right now, there is no hope; we will dissolve into the Sixth Extinction.

However, if there is a real desire to get ourselves out of this mess, to be able to truly exclude the psychopaths and pathological types from amongst our congregations, and if we truly realize what we are up against, we can iron out the differences between normal humans who truly want a decent life for themselves and their children, share the research that shows that our roots are the same, and return to them!

Results are what count, and we desperately need those results or humanity will perish. As Joe Baegent wrote in his marvelous essay:

Some Americans believe we can collectively triumph over the monolith we presently fear and worship. Others believe the best we can do is to find the personal strength to endure and go forward on lonely inner plains of the self.

Doing either will take inner moral, spiritual and intellectual liberation. It all depends on where you choose to fight your battle. Or if you even choose to fight it. But one thing is certain: The only way out is in.